An analysis of pathology knowledge and decision making for the development of artificial intelligence-based consulting systems.

This paper partly addresses the question "What artificial intelligence (AI) tools are appropriate for which parts of pathology?" by analyzing the structure and components of knowledge in pathology (e.g., observations plus archival and reference data) and which aspects of that knowledge should be expressible in an AI consulting system. The different aspects of uncertainty (observational, prevalence and validity) play an important role in both human and computer-based decision-making processes, as do relationships between the components of knowledge. The design of an AI consultant system is discussed in terms of the way uncertainty is expressed and in how many parameters, the way uncertainty is propagated (Bayes, certainty factors, Dempster-Schafer, logic or Pathfinder heuristic methods), whether the system reasons from data to a conclusion or vice versa and what the aim of the system is. The suitability of an AI tool is determined by the knowable facts of the pathology subfield, by the match with its knowledge structure and by its requirements. While the success of an AI tool will partly depend on an appropriate definition of its scope, the appropriate combinatoric also depends on the expertise of the user.